Source: The Trinity: Evidences and Issues Robert Morey, Chapter 14, p. 207ff
Jewish literature
Online access to ancient Jewish literature - https://huc.edu/libraries/free-online-resources/free-online-resources-bible-early-writings/
| Before Christ | After Christ |
|---|---|
| Septuagint - translated in Alexandria around 200 BC. |
Rabbinic writings |
| Dead Sea Scrolls www.deadseascrolls.org.il/ dssenglishbible.com/ scholarlyeditions.brill.com/dsbo/ libguides.thedtl.org/c.php?g=882174 |
Talmuds |
| Targums targum.info/targumic-texts/ www.sefaria.org/texts/Tanakh/Targum |
|
| Midrash - commentaries | |
| Pseudepigraphy -more than 65 early Jewish books | |
| 4 Ezra |
Mishnah |
| 1 Enoch |
|
| 2 Baruch |
|
After the Babylonian Captivity, many Jews could no longer understand the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. This problem led to two ancient translations, the Aramaic Targums and the Greek Septuagint.
The "intertestamental" and "rabbinic" writings viewed together are representative of early Judaism. They supply us with the only written of what the Jews actually believed about God and the Messiah before, during and after the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. They will either build a bridge linking the two Testaments together or create a wall separating them.
Liberal theologians joined forces with Jewish scholars in declaring that Jesus was a simple Jew in belief and practice and, thus, the "Jesus" described in the New Testament was the mythical creation of the Apostle Paul who derived his concept of the divine Son of God from pagan religions.
Two authors who were influential in promoting these views were: Werde in his book Paulus and also The Messianic Secret. Then Bruckner in 1908 stated in Der Strebe und Auferstehend Gottheiland that Paul derived his christology from the Greek Mystery religions. This was repeated by Bousset in Kyrious Christos in 1913. It was later adopted by Bultman in his Theology of the New Testament (NY: Scribners, 1951), 1:33FF, and became one of the pillars of modern liberalism.
Conservative scholars have repeatedly pointed out the many errors in and insurmountable problems of the Werde-Bousset thesis. Dr. Gresham Machen, the best New Testament scholar of his day in The Origin of Paul's Religion (1925), gave a devastating refutation. The Dutch scholar Ridderbos, in his book Paul and Jesus (1958) presented a refutation based on European scholarship. This in 1981, Seyoon Kim brought all the elements of the issue together in his masterful work, The Origin of Paul's Religion.
Charlesworth comments on Werde's work:
In the light of our research it is seen to be full of numerous errors... Werde was amazingly ignorant of Jewish sources, referring to the concept of a hidden Messiah by citing only Justin Martyr and the Gospel of John, and bypassing the classic references to this idea in such works as 4 Ezra. Nowhere does he refer to the messianology found in the Psalms of Solomon, 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. It was unfortunately typical of his time for a New Testament scholar to study Greek thought and religion, and to ignore the detailed and fruitful research of such contemporaries as Kautzsch ad Charles... his work is sadly anti-Semitic or better anti-Jewish. —The Messiah, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) p. 34.
The naive assumption that the New Testament's understanding of the person and work of the Messiah was unknown to the Jews, but was something novel and new coming from foreign pagan sources, cannot withstand critical scholarship. Several observations make this abundantly clear.
Since the Jews did not complain and the Christians did not explain the concepts of the Messiah that were being applied to Jesus, they must have held to common views. For example, nowhere in the documents do we ever find the Jews objecting to the idea of God having a Son or that the Messiah was the Son of God. Neither did they debate whether or not the Messiah would set up God's kingdom on earth. Thus, the issue which divided them was not the existence of the Messiah, but His identity as Jesus of Nazareth.
The Hebrew Bible was first translated by Alexandrian Jews into Greek around 200 B.C It is called the "Septuagint" in honor of the seventy Jews who translated it. The authors of the Greek New Testament frequently quoted from the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew text and it soon became the 0ld Testament text of the Early Church.
The Septuagint translated the Hebrew word j'yvim; "Messiah" as χριστός "Christ" in such places as Psalms 2:2 and Daniel 9:26. The use of the word "Christ" set the precedent for all the Jewish literature which came after the Septuagint. It means "Anointed One."
The English word "Messiah" is not a translation, but a transliteration of the Hebrew letters in the word j'yvim. If it had been translated it would read "Anointed One.'
The English word "Christ" is not a translation either. It is a transliteration from the Latin word Christi which was itself a transliteration of the Greek word χριστός. Jerome had the habit of taking Greek words and transliterating them into Latin instead of translating them. This error was then compounded by the English translators who transliterated the Latin into English. Such words as "angel," "baptism," "Messiah," and "Christ"' are clearly misnomers. But we are stuck with them for better or worse.
The New Testament's use of the Septuagint determined its concept of the Messiah in many ways. For example, when the Alexandrian Jews translated Isaiah 7:14 from the Hebrew to the Greek, they wrote:
This is what is quoted in Matthew 1:21. The preciseness of the Greek word παρθένος “virgin” overcomes any vagueness in the Hebrew text. The “young woman” in question was a virgin and not a married woman. Thus, the idea of the Messiah coming through a virgin’s womb came from Isaiah 7:14 and not from some pagan religion.
The Septuagint at times paraphrases the Hebrew instead of translating it. On some of these occasions, it is clear that the translators emphasized that the text was speaking of King Messiah who was to come. One such passage is Isaiah 52:13–53:12, which speaks of the “servant of the Yahweh” suffering and dying for our sins.
Modern scholars have pointed out that the vocabulary and grammar of Isaiah 52:13–53:12 in the Septuagint clearly indicate that its translators interpreted this passage as a reference to a coming Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of the people of God.
Other passages that have a clear messianic interpretation in the Septuagint text include Genesis 49:10, Numbers 24:17, Psalms 2, Micah 5:2, etc.
The authors of the New Testament followed the Septuagint in its messianic understanding of these classic Old Testament texts. If the New Testament is "pagan," then so is the Septuagint.
Genesis 3:15
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "in the days of King Messiah"
The Fragmentary Targum: "in the days of King Messiah"
Targum Neofiti I: "in the day of King Messiah"
Genesis 49:10-12
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine; He washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are dull from wine, and his teeth white from milk.
Targum Onkelos: "until the Messiah comes, to whom the kingdom belongs, and whom nations [i.e., Gentiles] shall obey."
Targum Pseudo-Jonathon: "Kings and rulers shall not cease from those of the house of Judah, nor scribes teaching the Law, from his descendants, until the time the King Messiah comes, the youngest of his sons, because of whom the people will pine away. How beautiful is the King Messiah who is to arise from among those of the house of Judah... How beautiful are the eyes of the King Messiah."
Targum Neofiti I: "until the time King Messiah shall come, to whom the kingship belongs; to him shall all the kingdoms be subject. How beautiful is King nMessiah... How beautiful are the eyes of King Messiah."
4Qpatr: "until the Messiah of justice, the sprout of David, comes; for to him and to his seed has been given the covenant of kingship." (quoted in n. 24, vol. 1A, p. 220 in Targum Neofiti I.)
...
The Trinitarian finds in the early Jewish literature the theological terminology and ideas that explain why the New Testament was able to set forth the triune nature of God and the deity of the Messiah with such ease. The progress of doctrine which took place during the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew ultimately led to the early Church's formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Now the truth came to be known. New Testament christology was not derived from pagan sources, but from contemporary Judaism. James Charlesworth summarizes what modern liberal scholarship now admits:
The language of the New Testament is not a new creation; it is the crystallization of the living language used in Jewish circles in which the Old Testament was the sacred word of God. Christianity, it is clear, must not be defined as a religion divorced from its origins. Christianity not only inherited the Scriptures of the Jews; it was formed both by the Jewish means of interpreting these sacred works and by Jesus and his earliest followers, all of whom were Jews. And the interpretation occurred within Judaism; the earliest decades of Christianity, and perhaps its first one hundred years, were spent within, then alongside of, Judaism. —The Old and the New Testament, ed. James Charlesworth and Walter Weaver (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1993), p. 76.